Tag: Stephanie Grisham

WHITE HOUSE GOES FULL “DEAR LEADER” IN PRAISE OF “GENIUS” DONALD TRUMP

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Accused by former White House chief of staff John Kelly of replacing him with a “yes man,” President Donald Trump dispatched a yes woman to rebut him. “I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President,” Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement to CNN on Saturday, offering North Korean television a lesson in sycophancy.

The dust-up began when Kelly claimed at a Washington Examiner political summit over the weekend that he’d spoken to Trump before his January departure about the perils of silencing dissent in office. “I said, whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth,” Kelly claimed. “Don’t do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached.” He continued, paraphrasing the conversation: “Don’t hire someone that will just, you know, nod and say, ‘You know, that’s a great idea Mr. President,’ Because you will be impeached.’”

In the months since Mick Mulvaney took over as acting chief of staff, Democrats have launched an official impeachment inquiry into Trump’s efforts to extort Ukraine into opening investigations into Joe Biden and an u founded conspiracy theory that Russia was framed for election hacking in 2016. The irony was apparently lost on Grisham—who has not held a single press briefing since taking over from Sarah Sanders. Grisham issued an almost uncanny “Dear Leader”-style response to Kelly’s claim, proclaiming Trump’s unparalleled greatness.

“I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President,” Grisham said in a statement. That president, likewise refused to allow Kelly even the briefest of credit. “John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that,” Trump replied in his own statement. “If he would have said that, I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does.”

Kelly—sometimes credited as one of the “adults in the room” when it came to managing Trump—went on to express mild regret at his departure from the White House. “I have an awful lot of, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving,” he added. “It pains me to see what’s going on, because I believe if I was still there or someone like me was there, he would not be kind of, all over the place.”

He concluded of Trump’s recent struggles with the office, “the system that should be in place, clearly — the system of advising, bringing in experts, having these discussions with the president so he can make an informed decision — that clearly is not in place. And I feel bad that I left.”

[Vanity Fair]

Trump falsely claims Melania Trump has ‘gotten to know Kim Jong Un’

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President Donald Trump gave a joint news conference Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron before his departure from the G7 summit in France. He then stuck around to take additional questions by himself.

Trump made at least eight false claims, seven of which he had made before. (The new one was an odd claim about Melania Trump and Kim Jong Un.) And he made at least five claims that we’ll call misleading, questionable or lacking in context.

Melania Trump and Kim Jong Un“

“The first lady has gotten to know Kim Jong Un, and I think she would agree with me he is a man with a country that has tremendous potential,” Trump said.

Facts First: Melania Trump was not present for any of Trump’s three meetings with Kim Jong Un, and there is no evidence she has ever spoken to Kim.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement later Monday:

“President Trump confides in his wife on many issues including the detailed elements of his strong relationship with Chairman Kim — and while the First Lady hasn’t met him, the President feels like she’s gotten to know him too.”We’re still calling the statement false. Trump’s phrasing, “gotten to know,” clearly suggested some level of personal interaction between Melania Trump and Kim.

[CNN]

Trump skips G7 climate summit with aides lying about scheduling conflict

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President Donald Trump skipped a session devoted to climate change at the G7 summit here, a snub aides wrote off as a scheduling conflict but nonetheless reflects Trump’s isolation on the issue.

As other leaders were taking their seats around a large round table, the chair reserved for Trump sat empty. The summit’s host, French President Emmanuel Macron, gaveled the meeting to order anyway and launched into an explanation of a wrist watch made from recycled plastic.

Later, the White House said Trump’s schedule prevented his attendance.

“The President had scheduled meetings and bilaterals with Germany and India, so a senior member of the Administration attended in his stead,” press secretary Stephanie Grisham said.

But the leaders of both those countries — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — were both seen attending, at least for the start of the session.

An official said the staffer who replaced Trump worked for the National Security Council.

Speaking afterward, Macron seemed to shrug off Trump’s absence.

“He wasn’t in the room, but his team was,” Macron said at a news conference. He urged reporters not to read too much into Trump’s decision to skip the session, insisting the US is aligned with the rest of the G7 on issues of biodiversity and combating fires in the Amazon rainforest.

Still, Macron acknowledged Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord — a move that angered European nations, who remain part of the pact. Macron said it was no longer his goal to convince Trump to return to the agreement.

In the lead-up to the G7, Trump’s aides said he wasn’t entirely interested in the climate portions of the summit, believing them a waste of time compared to discussion of the economy.

After past G7s, Trump complained that too much time was spent on issues he deemed unimportant, like clearing oceans of plastics.

But Macron made climate one of the main focuses of this year’s gathering anyway, scheduling the session on Monday and insisting the leaders address the Amazon fires.

That was bound to create divisions between Trump and the other leaders. Trump has loosened environmental regulations in the United States, even as he claims that water and air are at their cleanest levels ever.

[CNN]